FOOTNOTES:

[17] Remarks on Tables of Occupations, Ninth Census
of the United States, Population and Social Statistics,
p. 663.

[18] June, 1893.

[19] The table is copied with minute care from that
given in the last census; and while it shows one or
two deficiencies, the writer is in no sense responsible
for them, its accuracy, as a whole, not being affected
by the slight discrepancy referred to.

[20] The tables in this department of the census for
1890 are not yet ready for the public; but the department
states that the increase in women wage-earners averages
about ten per cent.

V.

Laborbureausandtheirworkinrelationtowomen.

The difficulties encountered by the enumerators of
the United States Census, and the growing conviction
that much more minute and organized effort must be
given if the real status of women workers was to be
obtained, had already been matter of grave discussion.
The labor question pressed upon all who looked below
the surface of affairs; and very shortly after the
census of 1860 a proposition was made in Boston to
establish there a formal bureau of labor, whose business
should be to fill in all the blanks that in the general
work were passed over.

Many facts, all pointing to the necessity of some
such organization, lay before the men who pondered
the matter,—­factory abuses of many orders,
the startling increase of pauperism and crime, with
other causes which can find small space here.
With difficulty consent was obtained to establish
a bureau which should inquire into the causes of all
this; and the first report was given to the public
in 1870. It was descriptive rather than statistical,
and necessarily so. Methods were still a matter
of question and experiment. The public had small
interest in the project, and it was essential to outline,
not only the work to be done, but the reasons for
its need.